Kezan drags a blue plastic sheet across the rooftop and places it between the fire drums, but it flaps around and refuses to lie flat in the breeze. He pins three corners with the legs of the armchairs, the fourth with a rusty scaffolding pipe, and then he walks into his hut. Moments later he emerges with a sleeping bag which he tosses onto the plastic sheet. 'There's a sack of coals down there. I'm off to bed now.' Kezan returns to his hut, and the other villagers have already entered theirs, meaning we are now alone in our open-air refuge.
'Do we really have to sleep down there?' Bex says; her face contorting.
'Three could sleep on those armchairs, I guess, but one would be sleeping alone on the roof and we couldn't share the sleeping bag between the four of us that way,' I say.
'Could we not remove the cushions?' Scoop says and Oscar tugs at the tattered padding of an armchair.
'Nope, they're stitched on,' Oscar says, trying a second chair, just to be sure.
We sigh and rub our torsos, reluctant to lie down, yet my body is crying out for sleep after today's ordeal and theirs must be too. The temperature is almost cold enough for ice to form, but mercifully the breeze feels gentle. I reach into the sack and throw coals into each of the fire drums, and as the heat rises a degree or two, I join the gang on our not-so-cosy bed. Bex and I sit one side of the plastic sheet, leaving a gulf between us and the boys as we spread the sleeping bag. It feels ever-so-slightly damp and smells like stray dogs, but its warmth will keep us alive, I guess.
'Every time I think we've hit rock bottom, we manage to go lower,' I mutter as I rest my head on my arms and close my eyes. Gunfire crackles as I twist and turn on the cold, hard rooftop, barely feeling the flames, desperate to rest, but unable to switch off my brain. No way can I spend every night in these conditions.
So much for toughening up...
Hours of broken sleep pass, and I hear a familiar rhythmic thumping which sounds gentle at first but grows heavier – and then I hear a man's muffled voice. Climbing from the sleeping bag, I sneak past the fire drums and huts to the roof-ledge, lying flat with my head over the edge, peering eight storeys down. The road is dark because the lamp posts and buildings are powerless, but I perceive a moonlit procession of soldiers who have come to a standstill.
'Come another step closer and I'll shoot!' a soldier booms with a western Anatolian accent. An indistinct figure lunges towards the soldier who is standing at the front of the military procession. BANG! BANG! The figure stops moving and turns invisible as it falls into shadow. Murdering bastard.
Doors creak and hurried footsteps come from behind then a few friends lie at my sides. 'They just killed a crazy,' I whisper, and as the others peer over the ledge, I unclip the phaser from my beltline. I instinctively scurry to another roof-ledge and scan the intersecting road for potential victims. Two figures are lingering in the shadows so I stun them before the soldiers arrive, concentrating fire to ensure they do not quickly wake up. They may be 'crazies' but they are still people and I cannot just let them be gunned down.
The boots pound again as a hand grabs my wrist and I turn to face Kezan, close enough to see crumbs in his beard. 'What are you doing? If those soldiers see your phaser beam, they could shoot,' he whispers.
'Don't worry, I'm not about to take them on.' I holster my phaser and we watch the military procession pass the intersection. 'I shot two crazies, stunned them before the soldiers got here. They should wake up in a few minutes.'
One of the stunned crazies is already squirming on the road – these people recover damn quickly like something is driving them. They probably belong inside a mental hospital but no-one is going to be rounding them up. They are simply target practice for bored soldiers. At least the gun victim seemed too far gone to grasp what was happening and passed instantly without suffering.
The six who woke up – Oscar, Bex, and a few villagers – gather around two tables, sitting in the dim light and relative warmth of the fire drums. Scoop snores loudly as Kezan removes his thick coat, then rolls up his tattered sleeve. He reveals what looks like a healing bite-mark on his forearm – a semi-circular row of scabs.
'I'm not sure whether saving them was a good idea. This is what one did to me,' Kezan says.
'Bit you?' I say.'Yeah, we'd gone down for supplies before the shard fell. At this point, we weren't as familiar with the crazies. We'd seen one or two things but didn't realise the scope of the problem. On our way back, I was trailing behind Sirah and Owen when I was ambushed by three of 'em. They came charging right at me. I thought I was fighting them off quite comfortably. They were aggressive but clumsy and easy to beat up, or so I thought...
'They just kept coming, getting up off the ground, and a fat lot of good those two were. They disappeared around the corner. I was tiring. I thought I was in real trouble when Sirah returned with a huge plank of wood. She knocked my two male attackers out cold. The third was a tiny woman. She looked completely harmless, but she got on top of me, and I was too weak to fend her off. She sank her teeth straight into my forearm, right through my sleeve. If only I was wearing my coat... Sirah made her pay though, battered her with that plank, and then we ran to the fire escape.'
'Since then, we've been more careful about going down. We scan the area, make sure everything is clear, and we don't dawdle, just move silently from A to B,' Sirah says.
Out of the female villagers, Sirah unquestionably appears the toughest with her broad, hammer-thrower physique. She has a large round face which is mostly yellow-brown, but pink at the cheeks, and she has bristles on her chin. She could easily be mistaken for a man, given she stands almost six foot tall, but I would not dare say that aloud.
'And I take it Owen isn't allowed to go with you, anymore?' Bex says.
'Hey, what's that supposed to mean?' Owen frowns from several tables away. He is a skinny older guy with no front teeth and a long nose which bends at the bottom.
'Well, no offence but you sound about as useful as Scoop and Oscar.' Bex smirks and the boys say: 'Hey!'
'If you're referring to the fact I didn't help, it's because I couldn't see what was going on. I was at the front,' Owen says.
'And your ears weren't wor–'
'Well, the important thing is everyone safely escaped,' I interrupt to stop Bex walking into an argument, then I turn to Kezan and say: 'You'll need that bite treated. It could be at risk of infection. I've been told the plague usually enters through flesh wounds.'
'Well, it's not like I'll be getting medical treatment any time soon, but I'm not too concerned. The wound's healing quite nicely,' Kezan says.
YOU ARE READING
Skye City: The Darkness of Emmilyn
Ciencia FicciónMy name is Emmi Basilides. I am an orphan living in the slums of Medio City. Every slumdog I know underestimates me. They think I am a dumb kid who could not survive alone, not without my brother, but I have been through so much, and I have never as...